Ryan Leslie’s SuperPhone

Since the rapid emergence of social media as a viable marketing tool for building brands and connecting with consumers, the trusted formula for enterprising has been to grow an active audience across platforms, consistently distribute content, then monetize those audiences through sharing advertising revenue.

Though this proven model boasts countless success stories, cementing the position of many prominent influencers and corporations within pop culture, ownership of these audiences has rested in the hands of third party platforms, not the people using them. As a result, those who’ve put forth the effort to gain massive followings are found forfeiting complete control of their digital business, earning a mere fraction of their worth without any substantial equity in the relationships established.

At the same time, these third party platforms have unlimited access to the real-time trends, engagement metrics and performance reports needed to develop a deeper understanding of consumer behavior. This backend information is essential for shaping messaging, producing impactful original content and delivering custom brand experiences. More notably, such insights are the key to generating wealth in a mobile-driven digital age.

Photo Courtesy of: Ryan Leslie

While content still dominates the modern media landscape, big data is the new gold rush for marketers, advertisers, and media companies alike. Each year, record budgets are poured into capturing detailed analytics that allow companies to more precisely track and target their primary demographics. Media powerhouses likeFacebookFB +1.33%and BuzzFeed stand at the forefront of this shift, creating new tools and technology to thoroughly analyze audience segmentation, behavior, and engagement. However, even with such advancements in mobile and social communication, there is still a level of disconnect between brands and consumers on a more intimate level. That’s where Ryan Leslie steps in.

Powered by his tech company, Disruptive Multimedia, Leslie is spearheading a definitive shift into the enterprise messaging space, transitioning from a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) model into a Personal Relationship Management(PRM) model. The approach transcends traditional email andSMSmarketing, using the personal exchange of data through a mobile phone as the catalyst for building lucrative and expansive businesses.

Having an extensive knowledge of your consumer base eliminates the need to reinvest excess money and resources to retarget people who’ve already proven an interest in your brand or product. SuperPhone has enabled Leslie to independently earn over $2 million in one album cycle with the support of just 15,000 fans. His product and methodology has also served artists like Nipsey Hussle and Rich Homie Quan, each of whom have seen have their revenue increase exponentially since owning their audience and adopting Leslie’s methodology.

You speak to how brands are spending big budgets to reconnect and remarket to the same audiences of consumers who’ve purchased or experienced their products– – why haven’t brands taken more ownership of their audience or adopted your methodology?

When presenting this methodology to my friends, executives at marketing companies and record companies, the pushback I’ve received is largely based on an antiquated strategy that, up until this point, has been working. The pushback also has to do with potential fear of the unknown. It also has to do with the risk tolerance that is necessary to break down these barriers and create a direct one on one relationship with consumers. There is a school of thought which teaches that in order for a celebrity to have mystery, or in order for an artist to have mystery and become a celebrity, there needs to be some distance between them and their audience. I believe the distance is already there, in so much that you only hang out with your fans in person at the meet and greet, and the other 99.9% of the time they’re just voyeurs who watch what you’re doing.

Where does a real relationship between artist and consumer begin or what is the missing piece that turns a fan into a personal member of your network?

Speaking to how these third party platforms monetize an artist’s audience and influence – it would seem that artists understand how the current business model works – what has kept mainstream or independent artists from taking full ownership of their audiences?

It’s really about risk tolerance, the appetite for pushing the boundaries and exploring the possibilities and the potential for revenue generation, or to have this kind of insight around your consumer base.It’s just amazing to know that your number one fan in the world, you know them by name. I know who his cell phone provider is, I have a clear record of every collaboration, every item, every special event or subscription that he supported. More importantly, I’m able to have a dialogue with him knowing that he’s accounted for $4,000 in consumption. That’s just one fan. So, when you multiply $4,000 by 1,000 people, that’s $4 million with just one thousand people. It is possible, in an era of technology, to maintain a personal connection and customer service that is necessary to satisfy, surprise and delight a consumer at that level, even in an industry where our most expensive monetization comes from a $9.99 purchase on iTunes, or a $39 purchase on Ticketmaster. So, for that to expand to $4,000 shows this is the future, this is the model that, when adopted, can provide a pathway for hundreds, thousands, or tens of thousands to create sustainable income and actually have a sustainable career as a creator.

You’ve managed to repeatedly crack $1MM in revenue each album with just 11,000 supporters; even earning upward of $2MM with 15,000 – what does that say about the value proposition or wealth potential of owning your network?

What is the next level of data collection or the new metric you see being most valuable and how do you plan to be ahead of the trend?

We are now building a consumer-facing product on the SuperPhone concept that is, instead of a Customer Relationship Management (CRM) tool, it’s a Personal Relationship Management (PRM) tool.We are developing the ability for the SuperPhone to actually nudge or send phatic expressions to those that you designate to be very important. Then, you will start to have a science around frequency of contact to business. It’s one part of the puzzle to say I can identify everyone who has purchased my last album, it’s another part of the puzzle to say that of the people who purchased the last album, these are the subset that I have communicated with more than three times this year, and these three have a higher rate of repurchase than those I have not contacted for over a year. These are the types of analytics and questions I would like to answer as we look into the future. The SuperPhone will eventually be the tool that builds and manages those relationships. Whether you have 50 relationships or 500 relationships, how do you extract the most value out of them in terms of experiences with those people that you possibly can extract, and I feel that is one hundred percent contingent upon frequency of contact and personal experiences.

There is still an ongoing dispute regarding the effectiveness and comfort of email marketing vs. SMS – do you feel like artists are really ready for that level of personal communication?

If you were to observe someone reading emails on their mobile device, whether across from you on a train or across from you at the gate in an airport, what is the difference between someone looking at emails and responding to them on their mobile device and someone looking at and responding to SMS on their mobile device? It’s the same screen, same keyboard, and just different applications. That’s it, that’s the only difference. What you may notice, however, is the actual expressions on the faces of those people exchanging text messages – they’re usually laughing or highly engaged, sending a picture or sharing a video. That’s why I believe messaging has exploded the way that it has. Look at the acquisition of WhatsApp, the integration of direct messaging into Instagram. Look at the breakout of Facebook messenger as its own application. That’s why it’s always interesting to hear someone say email is more direct and personal than SMS, because you’re spending more time in your messenger application, and the people that you’ve allowed into your messaging application are people you really want to communicate with on a personal level. When your Uber driver cannot find you, or when they arrive at your address, the Uber driver sends an SMS or calls instead of sending an email, because there is an immediacy around a text or call. I believe that the access to the SMS feed is the beauty of SuperPhone, meaning you will only give someone access when you really care about that person or you really believe that person is going to provide value to you in their communication with you.So, while you may sign up to many email lists, you will still give your mobile phone number to the most important people to you.

What have been some of the biggest realizations or defining moments that confirmed both this methodology and product is perfect for creators in today’s landscape?

When I would say look at my SuperPhone, you can keep in touch with anybody, we would more often than not be approached by smaller artists who would say I only have 500 people, and even if I had all their numbers what does that mean and how do I get to 500,000? That’s when I ask which one of those 500 people is connected to Troy Carter? Which one of those 500 is connected to Scooter Braun? It would be important for you to analyze and assess those people and find out what value they offer, because they follow you and support you, and knowing what can they provide in terms of relationship equity, because that’s what I feel the real currency will be in the future. I remember being at the BET Hip Hop Awards as a guest of my good friend, Ludacris. As I sat there in the third row, there were young people sitting next to me who were for all intents and purposes, seat fillers. There are so many aspiring artists who would give anything to rub shoulders with these artists and executives, or even dream of being at the BET Awards. The discovery moment realizing that the kids sitting next to me were either in the know, from a casting or production company, or they were friends with the Production Assistants. Those PA’s and Casting Directors told them, hey we have tickets to the awards, and you should come. So now those people, who aren’t artists or aspiring music executives, are sitting right next to the most influential people in the room. There were people with no desire to be artists sitting next to me, in the third row, having the same experience.That was an incredible illustration that the power and value of a relationship extends beyond just money;it extends to what kind of introductions can be made. It extends to what kind of experiences can actually be had as a result of those relationships.

With your model, supporters can pledge an amount per song, which comes with different tiers of experience-based incentives that go beyond just giving fans music – what does that say about the value and influence of getting fans more involved in your world?

In an era where your number of followers holds a lot of weight and people are committed to getting as many fans as possible – should there be more of an emphasis on real engagement over simply having a large fan base?